LET THE LAWSUITS BEGIN! After 19 years at FIRE, the last few of them as executive director, today I moved into private practice at the law firm of Allen Harris, where I’ll continue my advocacy for students and faculty members in free speech and due process cases–but as their personal attorney. (Anyone at FIRE can tell you that individual cases were always my favorite kind of work.) Happily, I also get to continue writing and speaking on FIRE’s behalf as a FIRE Senior Fellow, so I will continue posting plenty of FIRE news here on Instapundit. And for the many readers who have supported FIRE over the years, thank you–and I hope you’ll keep doing so!

EAST CAROLINA U. TO N.C. TAXPAYERS: DROP DEAD. Land acknowledgements (you’d give the land back if you really thought you stole it), CRT, “inclusion” that just happens to mostly tell dissenters to shut up, you name it, at ECU’s faculty convocation this year. Wait a month and they’ll undoubtedly be upset that the state won’t give them more money, and totally mystified as to why.

THIS IS FINE. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS DEFINITELY NOT EVIL. If you need me, I’ll be in my demon-proof bunker.

JUST OUT: FIRE’S 2022-23 CAMPUS FREE SPEECH RANKINGS. With adminstrative behavior (such as disinvitation successes or professor punishments) now a part of the rankings, the University of Chicago retakes its place as #1, while Columbia University brings up the rear at an abysmal #203.

CLOUDFLARE GIVES IN AGAIN, THIS TIME TO ‘STOCHASTIC TERRORISM’ TYPE BALONEY. After putting up a big front about how they’re not going to deny people DDOS protection anymore, they do it anyway, even though it’s against their business interests, common sense, and even their own inclinations. Why does this keep happening? (Beware – it’s a Verge article, which I link only so you can see what the self-proclaimed great and good are telling themselves this week.)

I used to be confused about why we can’t even count on Adam Smith-style capitalist self-interest anymore. Increasingly, the only answer that makes sense is that someone with real, physical power is telling these Master of the Universe types (or just “implying” it, har har) that they had better do what they’re told, if they know what’s good for them. Mark Zuckerberg knows what I’m talking about…

BIDEN AT INDEPENDENCE HALL ON THURSDAY TO GIVE A PRIMETIME SPEECH ON “THE SOUL OF THE NATION.” Will it be what’s obviously needed from our leaders right now, which is “with malice towards none, with charity for all?” It will be interesting to see what Biden thinks is the “soul” of being an American.

A DECADE AFTER FUKUSHIMA DISASTER, FOES OF NUCLEAR POWER RECONSIDER. “‘As much as I think it is wrong to go into nuclear power, I have to ask myself this question,’ German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said this weekend at an open government day in Berlin. ‘It is complex.'”

It is not complex. Green Party member Robert Habeck and people like him are not fools. They are actively anti-human Marxists who are reconsidering things now only because they are worried that they will get the Ceaușescu treatment when the people they rule finally realize who sentenced them to freezing in the dark. Unless it’s Latin America or Africa, that’s always what the Communists end up doing to you.

GOTTA PAY FOR THE STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS SOMEHOW, I GUESS. “In upholding the constitutionality of [the National Park Service’s] permit and fee regime, the [D.C. circuit] court drew a bewildering distinction between the act of filming and other steps in ultimately communicating through film, holding that recording video “involves merely a noncommunicative step in the production of speech… Ansel Adams would enjoy full First Amendment protection to exhibit his famous National Park photos, but not in taking them.”

LIZ CHENEY’S NET WORTH BALLOONED AS MUCH AS 600 PERCENT DURING HER TIME IN OFFICE. From $7m to $44m. Of course, this is hardly confined to Cheney, but given the bipartisan nature of these suspicious wealth increases, you’d think the media would be more on top of it. I remember when Congressmen bouncing 4-figure checks was a big deal.

CAN THE UK SHOW US A BETTER WAY TO TEACH LAW? Maybe, though I strongly suspect that the only real way to deal with lawyers being so expensive and yet necessary is to have many fewer laws.

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS ANY IDIOT COULD HAVE FORESEEN.

1. Canada socializes healthcare.
2. Canada legalizes euthanasia.
3. The Canadian government-controlled health care establishment realizes, “Hey, wait a minute, it’s cheaper if these people die, let’s pressure them into it.”
4. “Euthanasia” is now Canada’s sixth-leading cause of death.

At no point does it seem to have occurred to anyone that giving the government strong financial incentive to want you dead was a bad idea.

THE ATTACK ON SALMAN RUSHDIE IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU EQUATE WORDS WITH PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. Too many Americans, especially younger ones, think it’s clever to equate offensive speech with physical violence as a way of shutting their opponents down, or justifying violent tactics to silence them. Yesterday we saw what that looks like in horrifying fashion: a 24-year-old man repeatedly stabbing a 75-year-old in the eye and the liver and severing the nerves in his arm, all for the non-crime of writing a book some people didn’t like. It’s way past time for the “speech is violence” people who infest every cultural institution in this country to grapple with the reality that what happened to Rushdie is exactly what they say they want for all of us.

STUDENTS SUE COLLEGE PRESIDENT WHO INVENTED RULES TO BAN CONSERVATIVE FLYERS. A new lawsuit from FIRE.

I’ve been at FIRE almost 19 years, and I continue to be amazed how scared administrators are of flyers.

SALMAN RUSHDIE ATTACKED ON LECTURE STAGE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. “An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.”

MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT WAS APPARENTLY ISSUED BY A MAGISTRATE JUDGE. I mean no disrespect to federal magistrate judges – who are not Article III judges and are appointed to 8-year terms – but were I the FBI, I probably would have made the effort to try to get a full-on federal judge with a life term to sign off on a unprecedented search warrant for the former (and maybe future?) President’s house. The point of such life terms is to insulate such judges from political influence, and getting a warrant from someone not so insulated, on something as hot as this, is not a great look.

(I am ignoring the angle here that he had also represented employees of Jeffrey Epstein – it’s usually not fair to smear lawyers with their clients – but that’s not the best optics you could hope for either.)

BREAKING: TRUMP ANNOUNCES MAR-A-LAGO RAIDED BY FBI. This will end well.

FBI WHISTLEBLOWER LEAKS BUREAU’S ‘DOMESTIC TERRORISM SYMBOLS GUIDE’ — And you won’t believe what’s on it! Ok, yes you will.

I figured I was already on their “list” for being a free speech lawyer, but I guess now I am super-duper on their list. Are you?

HOW CANCEL CULTURE BOOSTS THE POWERFUL — AT EVERYONE ELSE’S EXPENSE. I don’t think most members of cancel culture mobs realize they’re dancing to the tune of those who lead powerful institutions, but you can be 100% sure those leaders know it.

NO, CANCELING CHAPPELLE IS NOT A ‘WIN FOR FREE SPEECH.’ Yes, Twitter know-it-alls, you can demand everyone you hate be silenced. But pretending that’s as good for free speech as not demanding they be silenced is just silly.

CAIRN UNIVERSITY ENDS 50-YEAR-OLD SOCIAL WORK PROGRAM. Helped along by highly politicized accreditation requirements from the Council on Social Work Education regarding “intersectionality,” et cetera…

AND EVERYONE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER, HAVING LEARNED NEVER TO DO THIS AGAIN. RIGHT? RIGHT…? DHS formally shuts down Disinformation Governance Board.

FIRE SUES ON BEHALF OF U. OF WASHINGTON PROF WHO PUSHED BACK ON PREFERRED ‘LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.’ Instead of UW’s preferred text, Prof. Stuart Reges wrote on his syllabus, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.” Shenanigans ensued.

Your more rigorous moral philosophers might suggest that if UW actually believes its claim on the land is illegitimate, it should give it back.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE WHEN SOMEONE GETS BUSTED FOR RETWEETING JAPANESE HENTAI PORN: Student pseudonymously retweets cartoon porn. Tags nobody at his college. College (an art school!) finds out, calls it sexual harassment, expels him forever.

If you’ve ever sent a message someone might see or hear and find offensive, spare a thought for this fellow.

HOW UT-AUSTIN ADMINISTRATORS DESTROYED AN INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY INITIATIVE. College admins really, really do not want students to hear unapproved opinions. And FIRE ranks UT-Austin #102 out of 154 schools in its climate for free speech.

SOME PRETTY CHOOSY COERCION CONCERNS FROM SOTOMAYOR’S DISSENT IN FOOTBALL COACH PRAYER CASE…

Second, schools face a higher risk of unconstitutionally “coerc[ing] . . . support or participat[ion] in religion or its exercise” than other government entities. The State “exerts great authority and coercive power” in schools as a general matter “through mandatory attendance requirements.” Moreover, the State exercises that great authority over children, who are uniquely susceptible to “subtle coercive pressure.” Lee, 505 U. S., at 588; cf. Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U. S. 565, 590 (2014) (plurality opinion) (“[M]ature adults,” unlike children, may not be “‘readily susceptible to religious indoctrination or peer pressure’”). Children are particularly vulnerable to coercion because of their “emulation of  teachers as role models” and “susceptibility to peer pressure.” Accordingly, this Court has emphasized that “the State may not, consistent with the Establishment Clause, place primary and secondary school children” in the dilemma of choosing between “participating, with all that implies, or protesting” a religious exercise in a public school.”

(PDF page 55; most cites removed for readability.) Great. Can we apply this to the endless, relentless pressure on K-12 public school kids to adopt and parrot state-established views on issues race, sex, LGBTQ issues, etc.? Oh, wait, those views aren’t “religious,” so publicly funded propaganda on that is OK, but a football coach offering optional prayers on the field is not. Got it.

Does anyone actually find this reasoning convincing, as opposed to convenient?